Physical inactivity increases the risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other health problems. Currently, only half of US adults meet the CDC's guideline of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week, with many professionals spending long periods sitting.
Active Garden is a cross-platform gamified app aimed at motivating inactive professionals to achieve weekly moderate-intensity activity goals, both during work and leisure hours. It pairs with wearable devices to track motion and progress.
Timeframe
Aug - Dec 2023
UX Researcher
Visual Designer
Role
Type
Mobile & Wearable Design
Team Project
Links
Solution Overview
Flowering Journey
Users observe digital flower growth on their devices where the bloom stage signals the achievement of their weekly physical activity goal.
Motivate to be active
The flower's slouchiness reflects the duration of sitting, returning to an upright position when users stand up and move.
Remind to stand up
Users can customize their weekly goals to suit their preferences and needs
Access calendars and send activity notifications during users' free slots
Earn additional seed rewards as incentives to encourage users in achieving their daily goals
Sedentary Time Reminder
Notifications for surpassing sitting goals and successful movement
Location-Based Activity Recognition
Leverage location and time data to spot activity chances, offering haptic guidance for moderate exercise
How We Got There
Infuse Fun into the Everyday
Considering maintaining activity goals necessitates consistent effort, and the demands of a full workday require considerable energy.
Our principal aim is to create an app that streamlines daily tasks, minimizes cognitive load, and fosters enjoyment, ultimately motivating individuals to prioritize physical activity both during work hours and in their leisure time.
Learn From Our Primary Users
To gain a deeper understanding of our target user, their barriers to physical activity and pain points, in addition to literature review, we conducted 9 semi-structured qualitative interviews with University of Michigan School of Information staff and faculty members who currently identify themselves as physically inactive.
Our Findings
Work professionals, especially those who have young kids, are busy and they typically don’t have structured exercise built into their daily lives. Performing must-do things is one of the reasons people stay physically active, like shopping for groceries, walking a dog, accompanying kids etc.
Work professionals tend to be sitting for a long period of time at work, only getting up and moving around when they need to grab sth, use the bathroom, have lunch, or for a particular reason. They often forget to stand up and move around.
Personas
Work-From-Home Enthusiast
Karl Swan
His goal is to ensure frequent movement and activity during remote work hours, specifically focusing on standing up regularly to maintain energy and health.
“I tend to work from bright to dark and forget time.”
Health-Conscious Fitness Seeker
Andrea Nielson
Her goal is to prioritize maintaining an active lifestyle to nurture overall health, focusing on physical strength and mental well-being.
“Being active isn't just exercise; it's a lifestyle.”
Lack of awareness, a packed work schedule, and a lack of motivation for physical exercise are primary sources of difficulty.
Based on user pain points, we followed the following design principles and challenges throughout our design process.
Design principles
The guidance should be sensible and easy to understand for users to change their behavior.
A personalized experience with flexible user flows.
Active engagements and appropriate interactive features.
Challenges
How do we keep remote workers engaged in staying active?
How can the app fit easily into remote work routines and encourage activity without interruptions?
How do we make sure the app works well for people with different fitness levels and accessibility needs?
Addressing User Challenges
To solve each of the challenge mentioned above, we come up with the following intervention components, with the intention to address the barriers we heard from our user groups:
Causal Diagrams
The initial design thinking process involved crafting causal diagrams for the essential aspects we intended to incorporate into the app. This step aimed to comprehend potential influences on health and identify causal pathways that could impact the overall design.
Goal Setting
Reminder
Causal diagrams for app features
Information Architecture
Subsequently, we developed the initial information architecture, outlining the features to be included in the app and illustrating how each component connected with others in the system.
Initial app information architecture (IA)
Low-fi Prototype
Creative Brainstorming Shaping Our App's Design
Once we established the app's initial structure, we individually brainstormed ideas using the Crazy 8’s method. Afterward, we shared and combined our preferred design aspects to shape the app's content.
We were particularly drawn to the idea of gamification, using growing flowers to depict users' fitness goals and their slouching posture to signify prolonged sitting.
Concept Testing
Whether Flower Is an Intuitive Representation?
Users find the flowering concept intriguing and motivating which encourages them to stay committed to their goals.
Other feedbacks gathered from concept testing:
The rules for flowering and the game should be clearly explained, either through onboarding screens or within the app. Additionally, some users might lack a clear sense of what qualifies as moderate-intensity activity, causing confusion when setting goals.
During the sitting time tracking, users expect the app to better connect the state of the plant to their physical activity goal. Otherwise, recalling the relationship between the goal and the plant becomes challenging.
Improving Our Prototype with Feedback-Driven Enhancements
In response to concept testing feedback, our team held additional discussions and crafted a low-fidelity prototype for further user testing and feedback. The three significant revisions we made are as follows:
1.Added onboarding experience
2. Simplified app setting process
Before
After
3. Implemented a rewards system
After all iterations, we created visual style and high-fidelity mocks for both mobile and wearable devices.
Design System
Standardize Visuals of the App
We created the design system and component assets to guarantee visual and emotional consistency across our mobile app and wearable device interfaces.
Lato provides a modern, friendly, and clear impression, aligning seamlessly with Active Garden's visual branding and effectively communicating our purpose.
The choice of warm colors is intentional, aiming to foster a sense of motivation and encouragement.
Finalize Design
A thorough onboarding process explains how users can interact with the app and the guidelines for cultivating their flower.
Setting: Data Share
To offer location-specific, time-sensitive haptic instructions and customize user goals, the app requires access to calendar, location, and past physical activity data, as well as pairing with a wearable device.
Dashboard - Progress towards goal
The system offers users feedback and a summary of their weekly performance, along with advice for future steps. Upon completing their weekly goal, a blooming flower is added to their garden.
My Garden - Goal summary
Goal Setting
Onboarding
A reward system incentivizes users to stay active. By moving around, they progress towards growing their flower. Meeting the weekly goal leads to the flower blooming. Users also aim for daily activity (22 minutes), earning a bonus seed for consistent performance, allowing them to grow new flower variants. By default, users cultivate the same flower type.
Dashboard - Prolonged sitting
Research indicates that setting a goal at the outset increases commitment. The system assists users in customizing their goals using past physical activity data, which can be adjusted based on their real-time progress.
Wearable Interface
Stretching notification
Users can quickly check their watch to see if they need to stand up and track their progress towards their weekly activity goal.
Location-based notification
When the system identifies appropriate opportunities for moderate-intensity activities, like in a parking lot, users will receive haptic feedback guiding them to increase their walking pace by following the vibrations.
Theoretical Construct Behind Design Decisions
According to goal setting theory, setting specific, challenging goals often boosts performance compared to having no goals or vague ones. In our design, users set their own goals to enhance ownership and motivation. However, the system suggests an initial level since users may lack a clear reference point for their abilities.
Goal Setting Theory
Goal setting often works in conjunction with performance feedback, where progressive feedback serves as a moderator enhancing user commitment to their goals. In this design, immediate feedback is represented by the stage of the flower. Furthermore, clicking each flower in the virtual garden provides a weekly data summary, performance feedback, and highlights health benefits of physical activities.
Performance Feedback
Positive Reinforcement in Operant Conditioning
We employed positive reinforcement from operant conditioning theory by rewarding users with blooming flowers and bonus seeds upon goal completion in the virtual garden. Operant conditioning suggests that behavior is altered based on its consequences. Additionally, we utilized evaluative conditioning to link nurturing flowers with physical activities, making them enjoyable and fun experiences, despite requiring effort.
The empowerment of users with easy to follow guidance on how to turn incidental activities into moderate-intensity activities can increase people’s perceived behavioral control and subsequently increase their intention for physical activity and as a result take action. Our app and wearable device are designed to detect these opportunities, provide guidance and empower users.
Theory of Planned Behavior
Unimplemented Design
At the initial phase of our discussion, we had planned to include a leader board that includes other users’ goal completion status. We later didn’t implement this design as we feel this is too evaluative and too extrinsically motivated.
Future Directions
For future directions, there are a few things we want to change and add to the system.
1. Besides identifying spontaneous chances to turn incidental activities into moderate-intensity ones, the system could prompt users in the morning to schedule these activities based on their calendar. This enhances user ownership and proactive planning for the activities.
2. Develop a desktop extension to remind users to stand up in addition to sending notification through wearable devices. As work professionals may ignore the messages on wearable devices once they stay too focused on their computer screen.
3. We might provide clearer guidance on actions to take when users stand up during the workday to enhance their self-efficacy and perceived control over behavior.
4. Add a social support feature, where users' success can be shared with friends and family to foster a support group.
Lessons Learned
Don't worry too much about the detail. In the past, I prioritized perfecting the product before user testing. However, I've learned that having a basic user flow or initial concept to test is crucial to keep the design process moving forward.
Focus on the problem. During brainstorming sessions, creative ideas often emerge, sparking extensive discussions. However, regardless of their creativity, it's crucial to always focus on users' pain points as the ultimate goal.
Adapting health solutions for diverse needs. Designing health-related products poses challenges due to diverse living styles and individual health conditions. Basing the product on observed facts rather than personal opinions enables it to serve a wider audience effectively.
Extension
AR Application
While designing, I realized Active Garden could be helpful in an AR environment where users can see the flower status while working. This led to my exploration of AR and the creation of a digital prototype demonstrating the product's functionality.
AR application digital prototype video